Alice Online
by Unbroken Promises
Summary: Love in a virtual world, is it possible?


**Alice Online**

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_Hope you guys enjoy!_

_Disclaimer: Of course I don't own GA. _

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Mikan had never been the gaming sort of person, however when Koko had greatly encouraged her to try the newly released virtual world game, Alice Online, she'd reluctantly accepted and tried it out, just for fun. And when she meant 'greaty encouraged' it was more like he nagged her everyday at every moment. For example, in class, Koko randomly stood up and shouted for Mikan to enter Alice Online with him and also when she was in the toilets and she heard a knock and Koko's voice saying, 'Alice Online'. Thinking about gave Mikan the shivers.

"Come on Mikan!" Koko whined and held up the Nerve Headset for Mikan to see. "I even bothered to wait five hours and buy us all these head gears!"

Mikan sighed looked around the room to see Koko and Hotaru slipping the Nerve Headset on and adjusting with buttons. Her jaw fell at the sight of Hotaru, without any threatening, willingly put the Headset on.

_I mean, it's Hotaru._

"It'll be fun, it's a MMORPG, it's really special because the creator, Kuonji, created a complete virtual environment. It's like a normal rpg, just like in real-life! I mean, how cool is that? So basically, you actually get to fight the monsters, you don't just control it from a computer, you do it yourself." Koko continued babbling on, his eyes shining in excitement, however Mikan got lost halfway and began staring at the Nerve Headset in front of her. It looked complicated with all the buttons, however Koko told her all she had to do was put it on and everything would make sense. Scooting over to Hotaru who was investigating the headset, Mikan leaned over and breathed into Hotaru's ear, earning her a smack.

"What are you doing, idiot?" Hotaru said stonily and took a note down in the small panda notebook of hers.

"Hotaruuu, I never knew you were the gaming sort!"

Hotaru looked up and stared blankly at Mikan for a few seconds before returning to her note-taking. "I'm not."

"Why are you doing this then?"

"I'm taking notes as to how this works, I'm going to create my own when I get back, this is a very good learning experience. I'm going to create a game better than that Kuonji bastard."

Mikan nodded slowly, now _that _sounded Hotaru-like.

"Players are to log on in approximately one minute," Koko announced and grinned before slipping the headset on. Mikan hurriedly slipped it on too and fumbled at the buttons.

"Are you ready to enter Alice Online?" a mechanic female voice chirped and Mikan pressed the 'yes' button with a trembling hand.

She wasn't ready for this.

No, she wasn't ready.

Mikan looked for a 'return' button, however there was none.

The machine registered her answer and whisked her into Alice Online. The first thing Mikan saw was an electronic box with a wide selection of avatars. In the end, after ages of scrolling through hairstyles, Mikan stuck with what she looked like in real-life and clicked the 'continue' button. It would have been better to choose a pretty avatar, but she still liked being herself. Closing her eyes, Mikan reopened them a few seconds later to find herself in the midst of a throng of people, all chattering excitedly.

One thing she noticed was how perfect everyone was. Looking around, all the girls had large eyes and full pink lips with the perfect model body.

"H-Hotaru? Koko?" Mikan whisperede to find two people amongst what was it, a million or more people? And what if they changed how they looked? She began pushing through the crowd of people in the desperate search of her two friends. However, she couldn't see them.

Suddenly, she bumped into someone and the impact caused her to fall backwards, however a hand shot out and grabbed her, hauling her up.

The hand was warm.

"T-Thanks," Mikan said, a little unsteady on her feet. She looked up to see a person wearing a hood that covered most of his face. Although most of his face was covered, Mikan caught a flash of red just before he pulled the hood further up and covered basically everything.

"Be careful," he said in a velvet voice that sent a shiver down Mikan's spine. Mikan nodded and scurried off, the touch of his hand still lingering on her wrist.

"HOTARU! KOKO!" Mikan yelled and stopped abruptly when she felt a firm hand on her shoulder. Turning around, Mikan saw Hotaru standing beside her, looking the same as usual with her cropped hair and violet eyes. Standing beside her was a person who was strangely familiar, or at least the blank smile was, but everything else was different.  
"Is that you, Koko?" Mikan snorted and resisted the urge to laugh. Koko was standing before her with pink hair and rainbow coloured eyes. "You look hilarious!"

"Ehhhh, I especially chose out this design for myself!" Koko whined and twirled one of his pink curls. "By the way, I suggest we move to a less-crowded area and I'll give you a tutorial."

Mikan nodded and followed Koko's lead, closely followed by Hotaru who seemed to be picking up everything and inspecting it. Koko led them to a grassy area with nothing but a few frog-looking animals.

"I watched the tutorial, so basically, you kill monsters by activating a skill. Activating skills, you pull back your choice of weapon and you release, you'll know when to release when you do it, you feel some kind of pull, argh, I can't explain it, but just try it," Koko said and demonstrated. He took out the plain metal sword that all beginners were equipped with and pulled it back before aiming at the frog-like animals nearby. He thrust the sword forwards and a ball of energy suddenly channeled towards the frog-like animals which were grazing a few metres away. It hit one in its stomach and it squealed and pranced off before continuing to graze.

"See? It's easy, doing it is easier than listening to my ramblings," Koko said and grinned. Mikan warily nodded and lifted the metal sword, staggering a little under its weight, and followed Koko's instructions. She managed to hit the side of the frog-like animal and it squealed before bouncing away.

Koko _was_ right, it was easier done than said. A small grin reaching her lips, Mikan looked over at Hotaru's way and her eyes widened at the sight of Hotaru hitting the frog-like animals one after another with frightening accuracy. Sensing Mikan's stare, Hotaru looked at Mikan and raised an eyebrow.

"What?" she asked and slipped out a Baka gun before aiming it at Mikan's head. Surprisingly, Mikan didn't feel anything, but fell back from the impact.

"Hotaru, I think your thing's broken, I didn't feel a single thing. Hotaru's Baka fun is broken~" Mikan laughed and rolled around in the grass. Hotaru glared at Mikan before inspecting the Baka gun.

"Mikan, you're not lying right? If you are, then I'll kill you," Hotaru deadpanned.

"No, Mikan's not lying, in Alice Online, you can't feel pain, so it's not _that _big of a deal if you die, I mean, you're not going to feel anything anyways," Koko said and grinned at his knowledge. It was nice being the one who knew things for once.

"Cool!" Mikan breathed and concentrated on aiming at the frog-like animal. She hit it on the tail this time, causing it to charge towards her. A look of sheer horror on her face, Mikan broke into a run, however the animal rammed into her and caused her to land on the ground face-flat.

At least this proved that Koko was right, she really didn't feel any pain, however her HP dropped a little.

"Ow ow owchie," Mikan whimpered.

"Mikan, there's no pain," Hotaru scoffed.

"I-I know! It's just….I'm used to saying 'ow'…"

Hotaru scoffed and suddenly, the world fuzzed for a moment before going black. When Mikan opened her eyes again, she found herself at the town centre, the place she had started off at. Mikan's eyes widened and panic began to creep in. Why had she randomly teleported? She looked around to see others appearing here too.

"Hotaru! Koko!" Mikan shouted and looked around, but all she could see were people she didn't know.

A deep grumble caught her attention and she looked up to see a huge cloaked figure looking over the crowd. It had blood dripping from the ends of the cloak, forming a disturbing puddle of blood underneath it.

"What is that?" someone screeched, soon joined in by many others.

"Silence little ones. Welcome to Alice Online and I have something very important to announce to all of you. As some of you probably have noticed, the log out button has disappeared. This is not a bug and will not resolve itself in a few hours, this is real," the cloaked figure boomed and paused for effect before continuing. "You can not log out anymore. There is only one way out of Alice Online, and that is to defeat all 100 floor bosses. As a side note, if you die in Alice Online, you will die in real life. The Nerve Headset will scramble your brain the moment it is taken off and the moment you die here. Also, a present," the bloody cloaked figure said and extended his hand and swept it over the crowd. Immediately, all the people were enveloped in a ball of light and reappeared looking what they looked like in real life. Pretty young girls turned out to be ugly men and the handsome men turned out to be just ordinary boys. They looked at themselves, horrified and arguments broke out.

"You said you were a 18 girl!"

"_You _said you were a young boy, not old man!"

"What?"

"What's happening?"

"Noooo! This can't be happening!"

"It is happening," the cloaked figure boomed. "Defeat 100 floors and your freedom will be granted, if you don't, then there is death. There is only one way out of this game and that is to beat this game." Saying that, the cloaked figure disappeared and left the crowd which had turned into a mad frenzy.

"What should I do? My parents will take off my Headset," a person whimpered to himself just before his eyes widened.

"Hoshino? Hoshino? Oh my gosh, where's Hoshino?"

"He said that his parents were gong to take of his Nerve Headset, oh my, did he die?"

"No, m-my parents are probably going to take mine off too, what should I do Megane-kun, no, Mummy–"

The person stopped in mid-sentence and vanished too. Mikan, who was watching a few metres away, widened her eyes and her heart skipped a beat. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes, however Hotaru didn't like it when she cried. She felt her hand trembling and her heart doing a mad dance in her chest.

_This can't be true. _

Mikan hadn't wanted to enter Alice Online from the start, it couldn't be true, it just couldn't. Seeing more people wink out of existence and hearing their screams echo, Mikan felt panic seize her heart and her legs went weak.

Mikan took a trembling step forwards and all of a sudden, she found herself amongst a pushing crowd, people pressing against the barriers and banging their fists against it with no prevail.

It was true chaos.

"H-Hotaru," Mikan whimpered and crouched down, covering her ears. She felt herself being stepped on and jostled about, however she couldn't care less.

She was going to die.

There was no doubt about that.

_I can't win this game. _

_I'm going to die. _

Squeezing her eyes shut, Mikan felt tears roll down her cheeks and onto the dusty ground. Just as Mikan was going to give up entirely, she felt a hand grasp her wrist firmly and haul her up. Stumbling to her feet, Mikan was tugged through the chaotic mass of people winking out of existence and into a deserted ally. Panting, Mikan placed a hand on her chest to feel her galloping heart and looked up to see red eyes looking into hers.

"Don't give up now."

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_Can you tell which anime this is inspired from?_

_It will be different from the 'inspiration anime' though, so it doesn't count as a crossover. ;)_

_Also, do you guys want Alices in this?_


End file.
